Orange Pop: Atreyu rocks the Epicenter

Atreyu's Alex Varkatzas, left, and Dan Jacobs tear it up at the Long Beach Arena during the Taste of Chaos tour in 2008. ARMANDO BROWN, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Atreyu, (from left to right: Dan Jacobs, Travis Miguel, Bradon Saller, Alex Varkatzas and Marc McKnight) is ready to rock the Epicenter festival in Pomona on Aug. 22 and release a new and more heavy album, "Congregation of the Damned," in October. SEAN HARTGROVE

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Atreyu guitarists Big Dan Jacobs, left, and Travis Miguel jam during a Taste of Chaos tour stop at the Long Beach Arena in 2008. ARMANDO BROWN, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Rock-metal act Atreyu is one of the Orange County music scene's success stories. For a decade the group has toured around the world and been part of some of the largest heavy rock music tours including Ozzfest, Taste of Chaos and Projekt Revolution.

Atreyu is celebrating its 10-year milestone by performing at the first Southern California Epicenter rock festival at the Pomona Fairplex on Saturday. Following the gig the group heads out on a fall tour with Hollywood Undead that coincides with the release of its fifth album, "Congregation of the Damned," on Oct. 27 on Hollywood Records.

After all of these years vocalist Alex Varkatzas says that the group is hungry again and that they pulled no punches when it came to writing and recording the new album.

"I feel excited to do this," he says. "On the last record, there was a lot going on and I didn't give a (care) when we put it out there, but on this record I do. We've been a band for 10 years and I'm allowed a mental vacation now and then, I just took it at the wrong time. On this record, we're all on the same page and it's a mix of our past as well as a look to where we're going. I'm excited to have people hear it and it's definitely more aggressive than our previous albums."

Varkatzas says that he approached the lyric writing process with a just-let-it-all-flow attitude. He wanted the intensity to come across and not leave anything out just because it could be taken in the wrong context or viewed as too personal or too extreme. Even the album title, "Congregation of the Damned," spawned from a line in one of the darker tracks with the working title "Carry Away."

"Storm to Pass" is another track that Varkatzas says he's proud of, which dives into the group of late twentysomethings' views on all of the international conflicts they've seen in their lifetime. He explains, however, that the entire album isn't gloom and doom but in his writing mindset he couldn't shake the thought that people all like lemmings, a bunch of people standing around and just waiting to be victimized.

"I don't want to say it is depressing because there is a silver lining to it ï¿½ a grandiose silver lining," he says. "I really don't care anymore. I left it all in this time and I hope people can see it for what it is. It's blatant, brutal lyrics."

The band is looking forward to hitting the road and promoting its new album now that Varkatzas says the group is more refreshed. He says that he feels very fortunate to still be able to make a living by playing music, especially since so many other local bands that Atreyu came up with have either broken up or are still around but struggling.

"It's a blessing to be able to do what we do," he says. "It is awesome, but there's some really crappy stuff about it that people wouldn't understand unless they lived it ï¿½ but the plusses far outweigh the minuses or else I wouldn't be doing this. I love it. I love having the opportunity of creating and making art and not like working in a coal mine - not that there are many coal mines in Southern California. You should do something that makes you happy and something that gives you joy and you can't go wrong. We're lucky to get to do this every day."

Although the band members have grown up and some of them are now engaged, married and starting families, Varkatzas says that he still feels like his band is as strong as ever and that the goal is to keep building, moving forward and growing as a band.

"We're just like sharks," he says. "Sharks keep moving to stay alive and we're sharksï¿½I don't want to die."

The band is planning on debuting some of its new music at the first Epicenter festival, which is headlined by some of the genre's heaviest hitters Tool, Linkin Park and Alice in Chains.

"We're super excited," Varkatzas says. "We've toured with Linkin Park before and we're going out on tour with Hollywood Undead and they're both on the show and we all grew up listening to Tool and Alice in Chains. We feel so fortunate to be on the bill. We're from Orange County and we've been around for a while now at this point so it's nice to be part of a show so close to home and to be able to bring something a little special to it."

The daylong concert was put together by Right Arm Entertainment, which also organizes the annual Rock on the Range festival in Ohio. In these failing economic times one would think that it would be a crazy idea to start a rock festival but Right Arm Entertainment co-president Gary Spivack says that he has faith.

"We've felt for a while that there was a lack of a really great late summer rock fest in Southern California," he says. " We got Linkin Park on board and they are easily one of the most credible live rock bands out there right now and then we got Tool and when those two things came together, we knew we had the base to put on an amazing festival."

Spivack says that the company also wanted to have an eclectic mix of music playing throughout the day so they included some hip-hop acts like Atmosphere, Aesop Rock and Hollywood Undead. Epicenter is also the only place Linkin Park will play in North America in 2009. During their set, vocalist Chester Bennington will debut his new group, Death By Sunrise, to the audience. The new group also features members of Orange County's Julien-K (ex-Orgy).

Although Spivack wouldn't say whether the question of whether to make Epicenter a yearly festival hinges on the success of Saturday's inaugural event, he did add: "Let's just say that if everyone shows up Saturday that will help the decision. It is our goal to make it an annual event, we just hope that everyone shows up and has a good time."

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